14 january 2014 - QA 2

Gurudev, today, the sentiments of devotees and followers are misused in the name of Yoga and religion. In such a situation, how should people trust and whom should they trust?

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:

This is not a new thing. Ravana (the demon king of Lanka) abducted Devi Sita by force by cheating her in the disguise of a Sadhu (a wise sage or ascetic) asking for alms. Is it not so? He took advantage of her simplicity and pious nature. Even today we have people who are doing the same thing. There are many good people in the world even today, and there are many true and wise saints present even today. And not just anywhere else; there is a great saint sitting within each one of you. Such miscreants and bad people are there, but are few in number.

In every field you go to, you will find such exceptions (wrong people). Isn’t it so? There are some doctors in Noida (a town in Uttar Pradesh, India) who were caught stealing the kidneys from innocent patients. It was reported that they stole some 150 kidneys from the patients they operated on. And the people did not even know about it.
When the patients used to come to them, they would tell them, ‘You need to undergo a minor surgical operation for this’, and then they would steal the kidney and donate it to someone else in exchange for a hefty sum of money. You all know this, don’t you?
This happened some eight or ten years ago, and it was a huge scandal.

So like this, there are such fraudulent and wrong people in every field today. But just because some doctors were found doing this, does it mean that all doctors are like this? No, not at all. We usually generalize the qualities of a few wrong people to the entire community of people. We should never do this. Yes, you must all be very cautious and aware of what is happening.